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Twilight, Part Two
Twilight, Chapter Two: The Master Plan is the thirty-third issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series. It was written by Brad Meltzer and illustrated by Georges Jeanty. Joss Whedon is the executive producer. Synopsis Acclaimed novelist and comics writer Brad Meltzer (The Book of Lies, Identity Crisis) continues his pivotal story arc! The Slayer army has suffered heavy losses throughout Season Eight and faced all kinds of threats new and old, but the one mystery connecting it all has been the identity of the Big Bad: Twilight. In this issue, Buffy finally confronts Twilight one on one, setting the stage for Twilight’s unmasking in Buffy #34! Brad Meltzer, series artist Georges Jeanty, and executive producer Joss Whedon up the stakes as Buffy’s most epic season yet races to a climax!“Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #33: Twilight part 2 (Jo Chen cover)”. Dark Horse Comics. Retrieved March 13, 2019. Summary Buffy hovers above a lake feeling pangs of guilt after finding out that the source of her new abilities is from the power of dead Slayers. Xander attempts to use food and humor to try and raise Buffy’s spirits, but to no avail. Buffy now likens herself to be no better than a vampire because of the fact that she has sucked the power from the over two hundred Slayers that have died since the organization began. He tries to convince her that she isn’t killing them and taking the power but merely absorbing their power when they die, Buffy does not see the difference in the two scenarios and begins to cry. Meanwhile at Twilight HQ, standing before Faith, Giles and Andrew, Twilight contemplates who amongst the three will be the first to die. Giles begins to recognize Twilight’s voice, and Twilight is not surprised by this and reveals the masking of his voice was a spell cast by Amy to conceal his real identity, and without her magic to conceal it any longer, Giles can, if able, figure out the truth about who he is. Back at the lake, Xander tries once more to cheer Buffy up and tells her that he knows what she can do, because he has seen it all, and even though she is gaining all of these abilities from deceased Slayers, there has got to be a reason why the universe is allowing her to have it. He reminds her that she was chosen for a reason and that she is meant to be where she is now. This seems to make Buffy feel better and Xander admits he stole the speech from Pa Kent in Superman I, and figured it would work on Buffy since the superpower scenarios are similar. Willow appears as a giant floating head to Xander and Buffy, urging Xander to hurry with Buffy and pondering the progress he has made with her. Buffy now appears ready for action and asks Xander what they need to do next, and Xander reveals they are going to find Twilight. At Twilight HQ, Faith lunges for Twilight in the hopes of taking him on. He grabs her by the throat in mid-air and tries to make her realize that battling her would not be a fair fight. She reminds him she isn’t playing fair and kicks him in the groin. Unmoved by this in any way, he reminds Faith that he is invulnerable and throws her to the ground hard. In Willow's hut, Willow and Amy are encircled by candles and surrounded by Slayers, including Buffy and Satsu as well as Dawn and Xander and the General and Warren. Willow and Amy trade insults while attempting to undo the magic that has been hiding Twilight’s HQ, which, Amy reveals, has been hidden three seconds in the future which makes it even harder to detect. Buffy can feel Faith’s pain as Twilight attacks her, and states that it is not just Faith she can feel, but other Slayers as well; Satsu finds this bizarre but they continue to monitor their screens for any signs of Twilight’s HQ. Warren and the General talk amongst themselves and Warren is angry that Twilight stole the headquarters after Warren used so much time and intelligence working on it. The general merely tells him to keep calm and that they will be back on track soon enough. Dawn and Xander overhear this, and Dawn becomes skeptical about trusting the trio who has done nothing but try to kill them in the past. Xander agrees but reminds her that before they can deal with Warren, Amy and the General, they must deal with Twilight first. In the Twilight HQ, Faith is badly hurt on the ground at Twilight’s feet. He reminds her that he knows how strong she really is, but when she doesn’t get up right away, he seems generally concerned about her. Back at Willow’s hut, Amy and Willow continue their spell while Satsu monitors for any sign of the HQ showing up on the grid. Back at Twilight HQ, Giles begins to piece together Twilight’s abilities and begins to suspect that his powers are similar to Buffy’s new abilities. Soon, Satsu begins to see an outline of villain HQ and tells Buffy to be ready for take off very soon. As Twilight stands over Giles, who is still cowering on the floor, Twilight begins to talk about Watchers and Slayers, and how throughout history, each Watcher has hoped that their Slayer would be the one, and Faith, still rebounding from her injuries, asks Giles what Twilight means. Twilight seems surprised that with all of the travelling Giles has done, that he would have told Buffy or at least Faith what he was truly looking for, and states that now that Giles hasn’t told Buffy the truth, it is too late for her to know what she has become. As he continues to speak about how Buffy cannot fight what she has come up against, Andrew, all decked out in various superhero garb, hits Twilight in the back of the head with a Frisbee. Meanwhile, the final three second countdown to the HQ reveal has begun and as soon as the location is revealed, Buffy takes flight. As Andrew and Twilight banter back and forth, Buffy flies into the side of Twilight’s citadel, and with superhuman strength, forces her way through and takes Twilight into her hands and brings him back into the air with her. As she talks about the lame choosing of his villainous name (comparing it to the book series of the same name), he pulls off his mask and his true identity shocks Buffy. Twilight is Angel. Angel smiles at Buffy, who merely kicks him through the air and into the forest. Back at Twilight HQ, Andrew, Giles and Faith recover from their ordeal. Giles announces to the other two that Twilight is Angel and Andrew seems confident that Buffy will win against him. Giles tells him that she will not prevail and that no matter what she does now, there is no winning. Back in the forest, Angel and Buffy are playing a game of cat and mouse. Angel tries to find Buffy, who is convinced that he is really Angelus again. He hears this, and promises he is not Angelus, and deep down, Buffy knows that, she feels it. Angry and not caring, Buffy pulls a tree from the ground, whittles the end down with her teeth and hands to make a very large stake. Aiming for Angel, she throws the tree stake at him, but the minute it comes in contact with his body, it is reduced to nothing but wood chips. Willow, Xander and Satsu listen from below, and hear a sonic boom, Willow believes that the noise came from the pair fighting each other. Buffy lashes out at Angel for causing the death of her Slayers, and as she tries in vain to hit him, he explains that he did not kill any Slayers and stating that the deaths were already happening, which Buffy blames on him and his anti-Slayer movement. Angel says that regardless, governments and powerful world individuals as well as demons were lining up to eliminate the Slayers, dubbed terrorists, which Buffy created. Angel says that if it weren’t for him, the amount of Slayer casualties would have been higher had he not donned the costume and united all the threats to her army under him with talks of a master plan. He sees Buffy’s attempts to hit him are getting nowhere, and when he tells her that hitting will not make her feel better, she knocks him through a bunch of trees. He recovers quickly and continues to talk to Buffy about how this time the power that she has isn’t coming from Slayers, and that it is like his power, and it is a power they have both been waiting for, what they have earned and what they need. Buffy, now glowing, tackles him through a few more trees, cursing him for lying to her about the power and asks why, if his intentions were so noble, he hid for all this time. Angel tells her he hasn’t been hiding, and tries to tell her that something happened to him in LA, something for the better but she doesn’t care about any of it, she just cares why he put her and her friends through what he did for the last year. He explains that when she shifted the balance of power by creating the Slayers, and that everything he had done was to distract the bad guys and focus her to what she has become. He tells her that what she feels inside right now isn’t rage, guilt or confusion, but rather the connection between them. She knows he is right but doesn’t say it and continues to fight him. He points out to her that every time she gets close to him, she begins to glow and that what they are doing isn’t just another fight, it is history in the making. Meanwhile, after the silence in the air, Willow, Xander and Satsu deduct that the pair are now talking. Back in the forest, Buffy tries to play off her glowing body, which has expanded from her arm to her whole body and Angel tells her to just let go and give into the feeling and let her body do the talking. She does, and he tells her that her body is not talking, and Angel tells her it was not going to, but rather sing to her and that what she is feeling is joy. Reminding her of their painful pasts with a lack of joyful memories, and tells her that this power and this feeling are their future. Buffy tells him that he doesn’t know her anymore, and he agrees, but tells her there is a divine reason why he fell in love with her the moment he saw her and why they are where they are now and being blessed with an unholy power and also why they can never be happy with anyone but each other. He also tells her that there is a reason why her body is glowing and why even though he is so powerful right now, he feels weak because of the fear that she will leave not knowing the full truth of the glow and her power. He asks her, as she tears up, if she wants to be happy. They both begin to glow and Buffy hovers above the ground for a moment, staring into Angel’s eyes then pulls him into a kiss. Hearing another sonic boom, Xander and Satsu determine the pair are fighting again, but Willow thinks the sound is the result of them having sex. Continuity *Xander tells Buffy she loves his pep talks; an example of this moments is their conversation on "The Freshman". *Buffy reveals that 206 Slayers have died during the Twilight Group coordinated attacks since Retreat, Part Four. *Willow insults Amy saying she's still a rat, in reference to her state as a rat for years ("Gingerbread" to "Smashed"). *Angel mentions Giles' travels to England (No Future for You, Part One) and Germany (Safe) with Faith during their Slayer social works. In Twilight, Part Three, Giles finally reveals to Faith he was actually researching how to kill a god, in preparation for the Twilight prophecy. *Buffy tells Twilight she lived the vampire romance before the novels of same name, having kissed and discovered Angel's vampiric nature in 1997 ("Angel"). *The masked Twilight is finally revealed to be Angel. A notable clue of his identity had been in A Beautiful Sunset, when he recognized Buffy’s move with the Mʔ. *Despite having been in close contact with Buffy before (A Beautiful Sunset), Angel also reveals he couldn't be recognized due to Amy's magicks. The only one who has recognized him behind the mask was Spike (Last Gleaming, Part One). *Angel tells Buffy he wasn't hiding, but in LA when "things got funky", in reference to the fall of Los Angeles ("Not Fade Away"). *Buffy defines that it's been one year that she's been dealing with the Twilight Group, which she had her first contact in The Long Way Home, Part One. *Angel tells Buffy there's a reason he feel in love with her at first sight ("Becoming, Part One"), as Whistler would confirm in The Hero of His Own Story. Appearances Individuals *Angel *The General *Rupert Giles *Alexander Harris *Faith Lehane *Amy Madison *Warren Mears *Willow Rosenberg *Satsu *Buffy Summers *Dawn Summers *Andrew Wells Organizations and titles *Scooby Gang *Slayer *Witch Species *Demon *Human *Vampire Locations *England *Germany *Los Angeles, USA *Tibet **Tibetan monastery **Twilight HQ Weapons and objects *Stake Death count *None Behind the scenes Production *Prior to the release of this issue, Georges Jeanty released a bogus cover revealing Twilight’s identity as Barack Obama. At the time, editor Scott Allie declared: “There will not be such a cover for sale. There is such a cover, but it was mainly something Georges did to humor me, and then I showed it to Jonah Executive Producer for CBR, and we decided to put it out there and see if it inspired more laughs than anger. ... I think we’re the only comics publisher not to try to sell comics based on the President’s popularity, so I thought it’d be funny”Shaun Manning, “Is Obama "Buffy’s" Twilight?”. CBR, December 3, 2009. Retrieved March 13, 2019. *Georges Jeanty’s variant cover homages ''Amazing Spider-Man'' #289 (1987) by Tom Morgan. Distribution *'' '' was the 33rd best selling comic issue in its publishing month, with 46,568 sales in March 2010 at comic specialty stores.“Top 300 Comics Actual--March 2010”. ICv2, April 12, 2010. Retrieved March 13, 2019. Collections *"Twilight" *"Season 8 Library Edition, Volume 4" *"Omnibus: Season 8, Volume 2" Pop culture references *Xander offers Buffy Pirate's Booty snack. *Xander compares the origin of Buffy's power with the film Highlander (1986) and comic series Rising Stars (1999–2005). *Xander quotes the movie Superman (1978). *Xander answers Buffy "Same we always do, Pinky" in reference to the cartoon Pinky and the Brain (1995–1998). *Andrew wears an armor with various items from fictional characters: Luke Skywalker's helmet, Iron Man's repulsor, Punisher's vest, Captain America's shield, and Batman's belt. *Buffy compares Twilight's name with the Twilight novel series (2005–2008). Gallery Cover artwork B8-33-00b.jpg|Jo Chen cover B8-33-01b.jpg|Georges Jeanty variant Preview B8-33-P1.jpg B8-33-P2.jpg B8-33-P3.jpg B8-33-P4.jpg B8-33-P5.jpg Quotes References nl:Twilight, Deel Twee Category:Buffy comics Category:Season Eight